{"id":436118,"date":"2026-05-20T04:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/436118\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:27:08","slug":"nicholas-dryland-who-caused-fatal-cyclist-crash-now-jailed-for-assaults-on-mum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/436118\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas Dryland, who caused fatal cyclist crash, now jailed for assaults on mum"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2020, he was jailed<\/a> for assaulting his mother, and she was granted a protection order in 2021, which Dryland has now breached.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old appeared in the Hamilton District Court yesterday for sentencing on charges of breaching a protection order, wilful damage and assaulting a person in a family relationship, after three separate incidents.<\/p>\n

All of the incidents involved his mother whom he had lived with most of his life.<\/p>\n

\u2018Punched walls, pushing, verbal abuse\u2019<\/p>\n

Dryland\u2019s mother went to the police in February last year about her son\u2019s ongoing breaching of the protection order.<\/p>\n

The first was on November 30, 2024, when he punched three holes in the wall of an alleyway between the house and garage and another hole in a kitchen wall. <\/p>\n

On January 20, 2025, he verbally abused her, telling her that he wished she would die, and a week later, pushed her twice as she stood at the top of a set of stairs, causing her to stagger, before pulling her hair upwards \u201cwith force\u201d.<\/p>\n

The following month, the pair were arguing in their kitchen when he picked up a large onion and threw it at her, striking her kidneys and leaving her with a bruise and pain.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ll do better in the future\u2019<\/p>\n

Dryland\u2019s counsel Afitu Veatupu said his client\u2019s mother and partner were in court to support him.<\/p>\n

A property had only just been made available for Dryland to serve a home detention sentence, and he hoped he could be granted leave to apply for that.<\/p>\n

However, Judge Tini Clark said she hadn\u2019t previously indicated that a home detention sentence would be a given, and asked him to submit why he should get that instead of prison.<\/p>\n

Veatupu said the assaults were at the lower end of the scale, these were his first breaches of the protection order, and there was a suitable property in Te Awamutu.<\/p>\n

But the judge persisted, and put to him it wasn\u2019t about the property, it was about why he deserved a home detention sentence.<\/p>\n

Veatupu said it was the least restrictive option available, but Judge Clark replied that his pre-sentence report \u201cwasn\u2019t particularly positive and I didn\u2019t disagree with much of anything contained in that report\u201d.<\/p>\n

He had not taken full responsibility for what happened or the impact of his actions, and only suggested that he \u201cwill do better in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dryland himself then piped up from the dock, stating that his mother had power of attorney over his trust and she had guardianship over his affairs.<\/p>\n

\"AA much younger Nicholas James Dryland in the dock in 2013. Photo \/ Alan Gibson<\/p>\n

After telling him to remain quiet, Judge Clark and Veatupu continued discussions about home detention, with Veatupu explaining his client had a brain injury, which he suffered in an accident as a child.<\/p>\n

He had also completed community-based sentences in the past without any issue and was remorseful.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s an ongoing pattern of risk\u2019<\/p>\n

In sentencing, JudgeClark said it was \u201cconcerning\u201d that he had assaulted his mother again.<\/p>\n

A report stated that Dryland\u2019s previous history showed an \u201congoing pattern of risk\u201d in personal relationships and had a poor ability to problem solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout there being much change in his behaviour, his risk of reoffending and harm to others is high, with particular concern to those in family and intimate relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe denied aspects of the summary [of facts], giving all sorts of reasons as to why he behaved the way that he did,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

However, he had completed a restorative justice conference with his mother and partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not surprised to see that his mother\u2019s attitude to him was compassionate, but I have read through a number of documents … where it seems clear that over an extended period of time, Mr Dryland has behaved inappropriately and in a violent way towards his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contributing towards his violent behaviour was the brain injury, which had left him with neuro-psychological issues, \u201cthrough no fault of his own\u201d but were also of \u201can increasingly problematic nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark told him that injury didn\u2019t give him a reason to behave the way that he had been and to continue spitting \u201cvenom\u201d at his mother.<\/p>\n

He was also now a father to a young child, which also caused her concern, especially as the last time he appeared, she remanded him in custody after returning a positive drug test for meth and cannabis.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark agreed to allow him leave to apply for home detention, but only if it was at a rehabilitative facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly he has ill-addressed substance abuse issues. It is in his interests and in the interests of his new partner and their baby that he get on top of a number of issues, one of which is his use of drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

She jailed him for 10 months.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, he was jailed for assaulting his mother, and she was granted a protection order in 2021,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6030,51247,13119,1863,6128,4057,8604,3549,15979,23676,8811,223148,11784,2082,209,296,14641,11156,6178,2721,111,43,139,24743,425,69,90,5270,1961,2044,1299],"class_list":["post-436118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-again","tag-assaulting","tag-assaults","tag-back","tag-bars","tag-behind","tag-caused","tag-crash","tag-crashed","tag-cyclist","tag-cyclists","tag-dryland","tag-fatal","tag-for","tag-group","tag-into","tag-jailed","tag-killing","tag-mother","tag-mum","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicholas","tag-now","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-one","tag-this","tag-time","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}